Atmospherically induced scintillation may cause substantial aberrations in perceived energy received from a distance. In various military applications, missiles and other guided ordnance may be configured to track and engage targets via remote laser designation. Atmospherically induced scintillation effects, however, may produce guidance errors, causing the ordnance to miss the intended target. Scintillation is the variation of energy across a seeker aperture. Scintillation causes non-uniform irradiance to enter the sensor, which distorts the transfer function.
The performance degradation is pronounced in fixed sensors, i.e., seekers that are not gimbaled. Corrective beam pointing has been conventionally observed with gimbaled configurations. In these systems, a lens or other optical element may be mounted to a gimbal which is generally free to rotate on at least one axis. Accordingly, the optical configuration may be directed to a desired angle to correct guidance errors as necessary. Unfortunately, the gimbal and supporting actuators substantially add to the cost, complexity and failure susceptibility of the system.